Australia Day! What are you all doing?

[oppp7]

I'm not from Austrailia, but I'll celebrate by reading Yahtzee's Extra Punctuation.

 

[ResonanceSD]

BBQ and drinks with friends, then Fireworks and Doctor Who!!

 

[Charlie the Grenadier]

I'll think about our overcrowded prisons and dream of a better time.

 

[Reep]

Bbq, pool and sunburn, best Aus Day ive had.

 

[Graustein]

But my problem is its called Australia Day, Australia did not exit until January 1st, 1901. Its the National day, its not the Foundation Day, or any other such event. What you are talking about is an event that does not coincide with the purpose of the holiday. The mere fact that you refer to an Australia during pre federation times is laughable, you seem to know about the history so I dont need to go into it.

But this is my problem, if you are going to celebrate an occasion, why not do it correctly ?

The fact that our only national holidays are Australia Day, ANZAC Day, The Queens birthday and Labor day is pretty pathetic aswell.

Australia existed before Federation. It was a British colony, and it did not have "The Commonwealth of" as a prefix, but it was still Australia. It was a colony, not a country, but that was a minor detail in the eyes of the populace at the time. When Australia was declared an independent nation, not much actually changed. It took decades for all the legislation breaking us off from Britain to go through, and even a century later we still have Queen Elizabeth II as our official head of state, not Kevin Rudd.

The argument that Australia did not exist prior to Federation is a naive one which discounts the majority of our history (if measured in years) as trivial. We definitely existed, and had a real character. We were not independant of Britain before, true, but even after Federation that changed very slowly; independence from Britain is not something that the majority of Australians wanted in the first place. I don't recall many people being actively opposed, mind you. They were largely apathetic. It was a defining moment in our history, for sure, but it was hardly a paradigm shift, and it was most definitely not the start of our history.

 

[Caimekaze]

I cleaned my room. For eleven and a half hours.

That was my Australia Day.

 

[wooty]

I'm wearing my ashes shirt, the losing teams one and sitting here pining for a warmer climate

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

[small]Isn't every day one spends in Australia "Australia Day", because it's a day spent 'in Australia'? I'm suggesting your holiday lacks a certain descriptive element, is what I'm driving at.[/small]

You're saying this to possibly the most unimaginative namers in the world (partly because aussies find it hard to take anything seriously). For example, what did we call those blue-coloured mountains off in the distance? The blue mountains of course. Or just look at our state names. What did we call the Western state? Western Australia. What did we call the southern one? South Australia. The only original ones that aren't sucking up to a now-dead queen are Tasmania and New South Wales. If Australians ended up being at the forefront of space exploration, we'd probably call the first planet we find 'dusty'.

Well at least you're consistent!

 

[Plurralbles]

go like you go on united states' holidays... the exact same thing every other day with no appreciable difference.

 

[driveBYargument]

Attending the University, otherwise just sitting on my ass doing nothing

 

[ostro-whiskey]

But my problem is its called Australia Day, Australia did not exit until January 1st, 1901. Its the National day, its not the Foundation Day, or any other such event. What you are talking about is an event that does not coincide with the purpose of the holiday. The mere fact that you refer to an Australia during pre federation times is laughable, you seem to know about the history so I dont need to go into it.

But this is my problem, if you are going to celebrate an occasion, why not do it correctly ?

The fact that our only national holidays are Australia Day, ANZAC Day, The Queens birthday and Labor day is pretty pathetic aswell.

Australia existed before Federation. It was a British colony, and it did not have "The Commonwealth of" as a prefix, but it was still Australia. It was a colony, not a country, but that was a minor detail in the eyes of the populace at the time. When Australia was declared an independent nation, not much actually changed. It took decades for all the legislation breaking us off from Britain to go through, and even a century later we still have Queen Elizabeth II as our official head of state, not Kevin Rudd.

The argument that Australia did not exist prior to Federation is a naive one which discounts the majority of our history (if measured in years) as trivial. We definitely existed, and had a real character. We were not independant of Britain before, true, but even after Federation that changed very slowly; independence from Britain is not something that the majority of Australians wanted in the first place. I don't recall many people being actively opposed, mind you. They were largely apathetic. It was a defining moment in our history, for sure, but it was hardly a paradigm shift, and it was most definitely not the start of our history.

The concept of an Australian nation didnt exist anywhere. Every colony only cared about hteir own interests, they may as well have been independent nations, they used different rail gauges for christs sake. When these colonies were federated they became unified, and thus Australia was created. So no, there was no Australia prior to federation, historically the events are valuable, but not in the 'Australian' context, in more of a prequel context, for lack of a better word. Similar to how the tribe the Goths went on to create Kingdoms that would become Germany and Poland.